OK, to review:
1. When someone is having a myocardial infarction (heart attack), a blood vessel in the heart may become blocked. The sooner that blocked artery is cleared, the better the chance that person will escape serious heart damage and death.
2. Thus, the clock starts ticking from the moment of event onset to reopening of vessel.
3. The opening of the vessel is accomplished by inflating a tiny balloon at the end of a catheter (we'll talk about sucking out clots later).
4. A measure of the efficiency of a hospital to perform this procedure (Primary Angioplasty for Myocardial Infarction)(PAMI) for ST segment- Elevated Myocardial Infarction (STEMI)(boy, if you think sleep has a lot of acronyms, wait'll you get a load of this) is called the Door To Balloon Time (D2B)(the time from the moment the patient enters the ED to balloon inflation, and therefore, reperfusion). This target is 90 minutes.
5. Measuring ST elevation on ECG is critical to the entire process. It must be done quickly and accurately, and given to the person responsible for activating the PAMI Team ASAP, so, as previously noted, the patient goes directly (or at least with minimal delay) to the cath lab on admission.
6. Fax transmission of ECG results from the field is obsolete because they may be inaccurate (this from the manufacturer themselves), especially when it comes to being able to measure the subtle ST changes in an evolving AMI. Comparison to previous ECGs can be very helpful, as well as serial ECGs.
7. Therefore, transmission of the entire ECG data file (which is what happens with the Lifenet RS system) represents the current Standard of Care.
8. Not all hospitals perform PAMI, so if someone needs PAMI, that need has to be determined prior to transport in order to avoid a second transfer.
9. The above list of Illinois hospitals represents all those in the ACC D2B PAMI database, so it looks like Palos is the only one we have to worry about right now.
10. However, with a D2B <90 minute efficiency of only
71% at Palos, it looks like this project is going to take a lot more time than I thought.
11. It's not OFPD's responsibility to get the Lifenet RS package, it's Palos'. Hmmm, I wonder what they have now...
SAG